EVGA’s GeForce RTX 2070 XC is cooler, extra feature-packed, and simply as quick because the Nvidia Founders Version, however prices $50 much less. Between the promise of ray tracing and AI enhancements sooner or later and quicker efficiency at the moment, it’s nicely value your cash.

That shouldn’t be an enormous deal. Nvidia’s Founders Version playing cards have been designed to be premium priced halo(ish) fashions, proper? However when the GeForce RTX 2080 and 2080 Ti launched final month, third-party board makers like EVGA, Asus, and MSI handled the premium pricing of the Founders Version fashions as the price flooring somewhat than a price ceiling. As such, all these high-end graphics playing cards are promoting for considerably greater than Nvidia’s said beginning costs. It’s a serious bummer.

Fortuitously, that’s not the case with the GeForce RTX 2070 launch. You’ll discover cheaper choices out there from third-party producers on day one, such because the $550 EVGA RTX 2070 XC. And whereas the $700 RTX 2080 trades blows with the older $700 GTX 1080 Ti, the EVGA RTX 2070 XC presents a efficiency bump over the GTX 1080 in conventional video games to go together with all its futuristic ray tracing guarantees.

The EVGA GeForce RTX 2070 XC

EVGA GeForce RTX 2070 XC: Specs, worth, and launch date

The EVGA GeForce RTX 2070 XC’s underlying specs hew intently to these of the Founders Version, delivering a small clock velocity bump in comparison with the GPU’s reference specs.

CUDA cores: 2,304

Clock velocity: 1,410MHz base, 1,710MHz increase (1,620MHz reference)

RT cores: 36

Tensor cores: 288

Texture models: 144

ROP models: 64

Reminiscence capability: 8GB GDDR6

Reminiscence path: 256 bits

Reminiscence bandwidth: 448GBps

Ports: One VirtualLink/USB-C, three DisplayPort 1.Four, one HDMI 2.0b

Energy: One 6-pin, one Eight-pin, 550W+ energy provide required

Launch date: October 17, 2018

Worth: $550

On prime of the out-of-the-box velocity increase, EVGA additionally permits you to improve the RTX 2070 XC’s energy restrict by a lofty 30 %, giving guide overclockers extra headroom than different RTX 20-series graphics playing cards we’ve seen. The Nvidia Founders Version solely enables you to bump the facility by 16 %. We’ll cowl overclocked efficiency in a separate part later. The RTX 2070 packs the identical 8GB of VRAM as its predecessor, however the transfer from GDDR5X to GDDR6 delivered an enormous improve to reminiscence bandwidth.

This GPU guarantees to unlock new options sooner or later, too, because of its devoted RT cores for real-time ray tracing and devoted tensor cores for bringing the facility of machine studying to video games, most noticeably within the type of Deep Degree Tremendous Sampling. DLSS is an antialiasing technique that delivers visible smoothness on a par with Temporal Anti-Aliasing (TAA) at a a lot decrease efficiency value, utilizing the facility of AI to render scenes extra effectively. The excellent news: Dozens of video games have pledged ray tracing or DLSS help. The dangerous information: No video games help both know-how but, so in case you purchase into an RTX graphics card, you’re playing that recreation builders will embrace Nvidia’s options en masse, and that these options will show as spectacular as Nvidia’s advertising claims.

We’ll see. Within the meantime, you possibly can study extra about ray tracing and DLSS in our deep-dive into the Nvidia Turing GPU in addition to the longer term tech sectionof our RTX 2080 and 2080 Ti evaluate, the place we examined some canned demos offered by Nvidia.

EVGA GeForce RTX 2070 XC: Design and options

EVGA overhauled its cooler for the brand new era. Whereas the corporate’s new exterior design might show divisive, EVGA claims the precise cooling know-how is far more efficient than earlier than. The twin followers have 23.Eight % extra blade space than earlier than, for 11.5 % larger air movement. EVGA says all these tiny “E” letters emblazoned throughout the blades by some means assist scale back noise ranges by 4 %. (We’d wager they’re there extra for advertising functions.)

On-line response to EVGA’s redesigned shroud has been… combined, to say the least. Some individuals love the clear plastic shroud and the followers coated in tiny “E”s, and a few individuals frankly hate it. For individuals who like it, EVGA now enables you to add a private contact to your system by swapping out the trim across the followers with totally different shade choices, although these kits value additional. The corporate’s excellent Precision X1 software program, which was rebuilt from the bottom up this era with nice success, permits you to change the colour of the RGB LEDs inside the brand on the sting of the cardboard.

And when you hate the brand new design? You’ll be able to’t see the shroud and followers when the graphics card is put in in a standard system, with the followers oriented downward. It simply seems to be like some other current EVGA graphics card, with an illuminated emblem on the aspect and an intricate backplate up prime.

Sufficient about how the EVGA RTX 2070 XC seems. How does it deal with? Let’s get to the benchmarks.

Our check system

Our devoted graphics card check system is full of a number of the quickest complementary elements obtainable to place any potential efficiency bottlenecks squarely on the GPU. A lot of the hardware was offered by the producers, however we bought the cooler and storage ourselves.

Every recreation is examined utilizing its in-game benchmark on the highest potential graphics presets, with VSync, body price caps, and all GPU vendor-specific applied sciences—like AMD TressFX, Nvidia GameWorks choices, and FreeSync/G-Sync—disabled, and temporal anti-aliasing (TAA) enabled to push these high-end playing cards to their limits. If something differs from that, we’ll point out it.

EVGA GeForce RTX 2070 XC efficiency benchmarks

Unusual Brigade

Let’s kick issues off with Unusual Brigade ($50 on Humble), a cooperative third-person shooter the place a staff of adventurers blast via hordes of mythological enemies. It’s a technological showcase, constructed across the next-gen Vulkan and DirectX 12 applied sciences and infused with options like HDR help and the power to toggle asynchronous compute on and off. It makes use of Revolt’s custom Azure engine. We check with async compute off.

Right here and all through the testing course of, the EVGA RTX 2070 XC delivers nearly similar outcomes to the costlier Nvidia RTX 2070 Founders Version. Meaning it smashes the older GTX 1070 FE, and performs about 10 % higher on common than the GTX 1080, which is its true comparability as a result of each value $500 to $600. That lead will increase to only above 20 % in Shadow of Conflict and Rainbow Six Siege, a pair of video games that reply favorably to the RTX collection’ newfound async compute capabilities. That’s why AMD’s Vega 64 outpunches the GTX 1080 in these titles, too.

Moderately than repeating “Yup, the 2 RTX 2070 playing cards are neck and neck” time and again, we’ll simply present the sport benchmarking outcomes with out a lot further commentary.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Shadow of the Tomb Raider ($60 on Humble) concludes the reboot trilogy, and it’s completely beautiful—even the state-of-the-art GeForce RTX 2080 Ti barely manages to common 60 fps with all of the bells and whistles turned on at 4K decision. Sq. Enix optimized this recreation for DX12, and recommends DX11 provided that you’re utilizing older hardware or Home windows 7, so we check with that. Shadow of the Tomb Raider makes use of an enhanced model of the Basis engine that additionally powered Rise of the Tomb Raider.

Far Cry 5

Lastly, a DirectX 11 recreation! Far Cry 5 ($60 on Humble) is powered by Ubisoft’s long-established Dunia engine. It’s simply as beautiful as its predecessors, and much more enjoyable.

Ghost Recon Wildlands

Transfer over, Crysis. For those who crank all of the graphics choices as much as 11, like we do for these checks, Ghost Recon Wildlands ($50 on Humble) and its AnvilNext 2.zero engine completely melts GPUs.

Center-earth: Shadow of Warfare

Center-earth: Shadow of Struggle ($50 on Humble) provides a strategic layer to the collection’ chic core gameplay loop, adapting the Nemesis system to allow you to create a military of personalised Orc commanders. It performs like a champ on PC, too, because of Monolith’s custom LithTech Firebird engine. We use the Extremely graphics preset however drop the Shadow High quality setting to Excessive to keep away from exceeding 8GB of VRAM utilization.

F1 2018

The newest in an extended line of profitable video games, F1 2018 ($60 on Humble) is a benchmarking gem, supplying a wide selection of each graphical and benchmarking choices—making it a way more dependable choice than the Forzaseries. It’s constructed on the fourth model of Codemasters’ buttery-smooth Ego recreation engine. We check two laps on the Australia course, with clear skies.

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation

Ashes of the Singularity ($40 on Humble) was one of many very first DX12 video games, and it stays a flagbearer for the know-how to today because of the acute scalability of Oxide Video games’ next-gen Nitrous engine. With lots of of models onscreen concurrently and a few critical graphics results in play, the Loopy preset could make graphics playing cards sweat. Ashes runs in each DX11 and DX12, however we solely check in DX12, because it delivers the most effective outcomes for each Nvidia and AMD GPUs.

GTA V

We’re going to wrap issues up with a few older video games that aren’t actually visible barn-burners, however nonetheless prime the Steam charts day-in and day-out. These are video games that lots of people play. First up: Grand Theft Auto V ($30 on Humble) with all choices turned to Very Excessive, all Superior Graphics choices besides prolonged shadows enabled, and FXAA. GTA V runs on the RAGE engine and has acquired substantial updates since its preliminary launch.

GTA V is the one recreation the place the older GTX 1080 and GTX 1080 Ti holds a transparent (albeit slight) efficiency benefit over their successors, highlighting that whereas the playing cards are comparable, there are some noticeable structure variations underneath the hood.

Rainbow Six Siege

Lastly, let’s take a peek at Rainbow Six Siege ($40 on Humble), a recreation whose viewers simply retains on rising, and one that also looks like the one really next-gen shooter in any case these years. Like Ghost Recon Wildlands, this recreation runs on Ubisoft’s AnvilNext 2.zero engine, however Rainbow Six Siegeresponds particularly nicely to video games that lean on async compute options.

Like we stated at first: Siege loves the RTX 2070’s improved async compute capabilities, and it actually exhibits right here.

Hearth Strike, energy draw, thermals, and noise

We additionally examined the GeForce RTX 2070 Founders Version utilizing 3DMark’s extremely revered Hearth Strike artificial benchmark. Hearth Strike runs at 1080p, Hearth Strike Excessive runs at 1440p, and Hearth Strike Extremely runs at 4K decision. All render the identical scene, however with extra intense graphical results as you progress up the size, in order that Excessive and Extremely flavors stress GPUs much more. We document the graphics rating to remove variance from the CPU.

Every little thing falls the place’d you anticipate, which is all the time the case with Hearth Strike exams. The EVGA graphics card and its stronger cooling answer (extra on that shortly) falls simply forward of Nvidia’s RTX 2070 FE.

We check energy draw by looping the F1 2018 benchmark after we’ve benchmarked every part else with a card, and noting the very best studying on our Watts Up Professional meter. The preliminary a part of the race, the place all competing automobiles are onscreen concurrently, tends to be probably the most demanding portion.

The EVGA RTX 2070 makes use of barely much less energy than the GTX 1080 and even the Nvidia RTX 2070 FE underneath load. Perhaps these little “E”s everywhere in the fan blades made the distinction? The brand new RTX playing cards use far more energy than the older GTX 1070 FE, however delivers far more efficiency in return. And actually, like we stated earlier, the vastly elevated worth level makes the RTX 2070 extra of a GTX 1080 competitor.

We check thermals by leaving HWInfo’s sensor monitoring device open through the F1 2018 5-lap energy draw check, noting the very best most temperature on the finish.

Take a look at these temperatures! Even with a standard two-slot, 10.6-inch design, the EVGA RTX 2070 XC doesn’t get hotter than 66 levels Celsius—an enormous enchancment over the Founders Version’s 73-degree warmth. Even EVGA’s entry-level cooling options are damned spectacular.

The EVGA RTX 2070 XC is quiet sufficient, delivering noise ranges on a par with the RTX 2070 Founders Version’s. It’s not silent, nevertheless it’s not loud or annoying by any stretch, even beneath full load. With all that additional thermal headroom, you would use EVGA’s Precision X1 software program to regulate the cardboard’s fan curves for greater temperatures however decrease noise ranges in the event you have been so inclined. Yay choices!

EVGA GeForce RTX 2070 XC overclocking

We haven’t historically included overclocking efficiency in our evaluations, however the brand new one-click Nvidia Scanner auto-overclocking software, baked into third-party software program like EVGA’s slick Precision X1, makes overclocking RTX 20-series playing cards a breeze. Simply click on the scan button, wait 20 or so minutes for the software program to find out the right voltage curve in your specific GPU, then click on Apply when it’s accomplished. Bam! You’ve overclocked your graphics card—no muss, no fuss. For higher outcomes, drag the voltage, energy restrict, and temperature sliders all the best way to the suitable, which lets the cardboard eat extra energy and run hotter within the quest for extra frames.

You’re nonetheless beholden to the silicon lottery, although. Our EVGA RTX 2070 XC received a +128 rating from Nvidia Scanner. After making use of the custom-made overclocking and voltage curve, GPU-Z registered our base/increase clock speeds at 1,497MHz and 1,797MHz, respectively. That’s simply behind our Nvidia RTX 2070 Founders Version reference pattern, which hit +160, however EVGA’s larger energy restrict flexibility helped it shut the hole. EVGA enables you to improve the RTX 2070 XC’s energy restrict by 30 %, the very best quantity we’ve seen with any RTX 20-series graphics playing cards. The Nvidia RTX 2070 Founders Version solely permits you to improve energy by 16 %.

With the automated overclock and elevated energy and voltage limits utilized, each the EVGA RTX 2070 XC and Nvidia’s Founders Version hovered between 1,995MHz and a couple of,zero10MHz in video games, relying on the load, and delivered nearly similar overclocked outcomes. The overclocking resulted in a Four-percent to 5-percent efficiency improve in a number of video games, although some titles stayed pat.

Do you have to purchase the EVGA RTX 2070 XC?

Completely, in the event you’re out there for a $500 graphics card that delivers stellar 1440p gaming, strong entry-level 4K gaming with the assistance of a G-Sync monitor, or ultra-fast 1080p gaming a excessive refresh fee monitor.

Our GeForce RTX 2070 Founders Version assessment established that Nvidia’s new GPU is one of the best graphics card you should purchase on this worth vary. GTX 1080 costs begin round $480 on Newegg, and most Radeon Vega 64 choices are promoting for north of $580. Move. Whereas the RTX 2080 is not any quicker than the GTX 1080 Ti regardless of its larger costs, it’s primarily asking you to pay a premium to gamble on the promise of ray tracing and DLSS alone.. The RTX 2070 provides you entry to that untapped potential and a strong across-the-board efficiency increase. The brand new RTX-series GPUs additionally take a a lot smaller efficiency hit on HDR shows. It’s nicely value paying barely greater than you’d for a GTX 1080 to get all these extras.

And with EVGA’s excellent GeForce RTX 2070 XC, I do imply “barely.” At $550, you’re not paying rather more than you’d for a GTX 1080, however you’re paying far lower than the Nvidia Founders Version’s $600 asking worth. EVGA delivers extra options for the lower cost, too—customizable RGB LEDs and shroud trim, a far superior cooling answer, and a better energy restrict choice for overclocking than we’ve seen with any rival RTX GPUs. Fast, easy software program tweaking can get this card operating at 2GHz very quickly.

The EVGA GeForce RTX 2070 XC

Add all of it up, and the EVGA RTX 2070 XC is a winner. The one potential cause for pause: All RTX 2070 GPUs pack half the futuristic RT and tensor cores of the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti. Nvidia’s launched some canned ray tracing and DLSS demos to reviewers, however with out with the ability to check the applied sciences in precise video games, we don’t understand how a lot (if any) of a efficiency impression the decreased core counts will usher in next-gen RTX workloads. In the event you’re gung-ho about ray tracing and DLSS, think about ready for video games to help the applied sciences in actual life earlier than deciding whether or not to spend money on an RTX 2070 or one among its stronger siblings.

Placing that apart, the EVGA RTX 2070 XC however will get you a spot on the ray tracing desk, delivers higher efficiency than the GTX 1080 in conventional video games, packs a potent cooler with nifty customization extras, and does all of it for $50 lower than Nvidia’s comparable Founders Version. Extremely advisable—although at $380 or so, the older GTX 1070 stays an intriguing and less expensive choice for players with a 60Hz, 1440p show.